The Yarra Valley has a long and proud history of graceful Cabernet and Merlot-based wines. This Thousand Candles example is yet another beauty. It's perfumed, refined, subtle, and sophisticated like a wine in a power suit and serious heels, with a medium-bodied and very savoury red and blue fruit profile that is more Bordeaux than Aussie and classy to the max.

Thousand Candles is a Yarra Valley estate with an almost mythical aura about it. Based around the old Killara Estate vineyard and farm that was bought by a mystery Malaysian businessman in 2009, Thousand Candles famously landed with a bang in 2012 with the release of a single super premium Shiraz Pinot blend. That wine essentially broke the wine internet, with the hype machine going into hyperdrive thanks not only to the ambition and intent, but also the dream team of viticulturist Stuart Proud and winemaker Bill Downie behind the wines. While the ridiculousness of that time has now passed, the organic and biodynamically famed, close-planted superstar vineyard continues to be the backdrop for these wines, with the Thousand Candles range now about a small selection of highly detailed, minimal intervention Yarra Valley reds and whites of rare detail that we really like.